mobileCategory: video games
10/07/07 05:16 - ID#41540
Sims broke my heart.
(e:Janelle) has been journaling about the Sims, that video game where you... uh... simulate humans? You know, soup to nuts. From planing out their home and rise in a simulated capitalist economy to the micromanagement of sending them off to pee. And at a time-laps pitch it is oddly addicting.
Well, I played the Sims once, when it was a new game. Like Janelle I started off modestly. But mostly because I didn't read the instructions and just moved into the first shack I came across. Well, living in a miserable tiny apartment with room mates I wanted to axe murder I thought I would play out my childish fantasies. So, two guys move in and I try to get them to fall in love.
Now, this isn't a one-who-got-away sort of story. At the beginning they didn't like when I made them hug. But they kind of liked it when one bought a gift for the other. They could joke and pall around, but if I made them flirt. Yikes! It was uncomfortable.
But, I was persistent and my fantasy couple got together. One was an artists, because that sounded much more exciting than the waiter I was at the time. The other was in the military. Oh, everyone knew about his boyfriend, but it was never talked about on the base because our man was such a good soldier.
One morning, the military man wakes up early and sneaks downstairs to make the other breakfast in bed. A few weeks earlier they bought a grill for their anniversary. He starts cooking on the grill as the other gently slept and then.... BOOM!
FIRE!
FIRE!
Military man was engulfed in flames and died. A little tomb stone stood among the chard remains of the grill. The other sim would spend all day weeping beside it. He lost his job because he spent all day grieving.
Occasionally military man's ghost would appear and try to hug his lover. But the living sim would get frightened and run away. Then, when the ghost would disappear hugless the other would just return to the tomb and cry some more.
I was taking a Modern Russian history class at the time. The Albany winter was especially cold that year and reading the Gulag Archipelago for class should have been a harrowing experience. But the death and suffering of thousands was less depressing than my one and only game of the Sims.
Well, I played the Sims once, when it was a new game. Like Janelle I started off modestly. But mostly because I didn't read the instructions and just moved into the first shack I came across. Well, living in a miserable tiny apartment with room mates I wanted to axe murder I thought I would play out my childish fantasies. So, two guys move in and I try to get them to fall in love.
Now, this isn't a one-who-got-away sort of story. At the beginning they didn't like when I made them hug. But they kind of liked it when one bought a gift for the other. They could joke and pall around, but if I made them flirt. Yikes! It was uncomfortable.
But, I was persistent and my fantasy couple got together. One was an artists, because that sounded much more exciting than the waiter I was at the time. The other was in the military. Oh, everyone knew about his boyfriend, but it was never talked about on the base because our man was such a good soldier.
One morning, the military man wakes up early and sneaks downstairs to make the other breakfast in bed. A few weeks earlier they bought a grill for their anniversary. He starts cooking on the grill as the other gently slept and then.... BOOM!
FIRE!
FIRE!
Military man was engulfed in flames and died. A little tomb stone stood among the chard remains of the grill. The other sim would spend all day weeping beside it. He lost his job because he spent all day grieving.
Occasionally military man's ghost would appear and try to hug his lover. But the living sim would get frightened and run away. Then, when the ghost would disappear hugless the other would just return to the tomb and cry some more.
I was taking a Modern Russian history class at the time. The Albany winter was especially cold that year and reading the Gulag Archipelago for class should have been a harrowing experience. But the death and suffering of thousands was less depressing than my one and only game of the Sims.
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Drew: First the Sims, then the children!
Drew: People get desperate with love and very well could get to like each other if they spend enough time together. But training them to have full fledge mental illness? That is a lofty goal and it was a noble try.
Set the bar a little lower next time. Like, with Alzheimer's you just have to have them forget to do things, like go to work. Easy. Or if you want them to develop a physical problem may I suggest incontinence? So easy, and so rewarding.
My hypothesis said that if I told a sim to behave in a mentally ill way, eventually, said sim would become mentally ill.
So I spent all of my time telling my sim to wash his hands. I let him do nothing else. His thought bubbles would let me know that he was hungry, or sleepy, or needed to use the toilet. I didn't care. I told him to keep washing his hands.
I was a little bit dissapointed that doing this never led to thought bubbles filled with guilt that would never wash away.
Eventually, my sim would pass out and wet himself. When he woke up, it was back to handwashing.
Eventually he passed out and never woke up.
:)